


Breeding Lilacs (Out of Dead Ground)

by lucdarling



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-06
Updated: 2012-10-06
Packaged: 2017-11-15 18:25:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/530326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucdarling/pseuds/lucdarling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five birthdays of Clint Barton.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breeding Lilacs (Out of Dead Ground)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [17603](https://archiveofourown.org/users/17603/gifts).



> Happy Birthday, jerk.  
> \+ can be read as a companion piece to [In You My Soul](http://archiveofourown.org/works/330464)

Clint turns seven at almost midnight today. It is another day for him, because birthdays draw attention and that is not something to need in this household. His mother presses a soft kiss to the crown of his head before he runs out the door; it's enough to put a smile on his face until he is in sight of the schoolyard.

There is maths and learning letters; the latter get all jumbled up in Clint's mind and he grips the pencil so tight his knuckles are white with effort. Then the bell sounds and there is a clatter to get to the lunchroom. Clint eats his half-sandwich with slow bites, makes it last.

A return to the classroom is a surprise and shock. It is decorated for a party, like their teacher has done for everyone's birthday so far. She has a special hat for the birthday kid and today, it is on Clint's desk. He scrubs at his eyes before Johnny Miller can comment.

There are cupcakes with dinosaurs on top, plastic and brightly colored. Clint wears the birthday hat, elastic tight under his chin, and a grin that stretches from ear to ear. He hugs his teacher after everyone leaves, small arms tight around her middle, as high as he can reach in thanks. (Clint goes home to a belt and a half-empty bottle on the table next to the tv remote. It is no more than he expects.)  


\- - - - -

Clint turns fifteen surrounded by people he thinks might be something like a family. They are all outcasts and wanderers, pranks and hard work and nightly shows. He wears a mask and is called _The World's Greatest Marksman_. He is the best marksman he knows, outside of his mentor.

If he was someone regular and not a part of this literal circus, he would be a year from emancipation. (His freedom from the rigors of the carnival life come sooner than Clint even thinks it will.)

\- - - - -

The clock strikes ten, a deep tolling bell on the edge of Clint's hearing. He's in a hospital bed, handcuffed to the metal guard railing. There is a man standing in the doorway, bland look on his face that Clint figures is well-practiced. His voice is quiet as he speaks into the phone he holds up, but Clint has excellent eyesight and the ability to read lips.

Apparently a director is coming to see him. There are no windows in the room that Clint is rapidly deducing is not a real hospital because he hasn't heard any squeaking wheels of gurneys, shouting nurses or seen any other patients. Clint doubts he's on a cruise ship though.

The man takes his time in coming by and the hours pass slowly. Clint dozes, scratches at the edge of the plaster cast on his leg – he shouldn't have made that jump but hindsight is foolproof and there hadn't been another option – and finally offers the man still in the doorway a seat. Clint is surprised when he sinks into a hard plastic chair.

He stands moments later when a large man wearing a leather duster and an honest-to-god eyepatch sweeps into the room. Clint smirks and waves best he can, handcuff jangling in the sudden quiet. The man in the suit looks bemused, the first flicker of expression Clint has seen all day.

“The way I see it, Mr. Barton,” the man starts and Clint feels like the temperature has dropped twenty degrees at the slow, measured cadence. “You have two options.”

It's not a hard choice that Clint's presented with. He turns 24 signing non-disclosure agreements and employee paperwork and seemingly giving all but his soul to the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division.

(The bell tolls midnight, a rich sound that heralds the beginning of the rest of Clint's life. A career job is better than a prison cell next to the sort of guys Clint used to shoot as a vigilante enforcer of justice.)

\- - - - -

There's only enough time for a brief phone call. Not a proper phone, a slim modern piece of tech that can fit in a pocket, but a bulk sat phone, bouncing the call off objects in space and scrambling it to avoid tracking.

It's perhaps – definitely is – a misuse of SHIELD resources. Clint can't bring himself to mind too much when his maybe-boyfriend is on the crackling line. Phil wishes him a happy birthday, static dropping the end of the word, before launching into the coordinates of the target.

Clint smiles all morning, even when he feels sand in places it shouldn't ever be in.

(There are worse ways to spend your 32nd birthday than in the desert. Clint could be six feet under or still shooting arrows dressed in bright purple.)

\- - - - - 

This is not the life he envisioned: a well-kept apartment, lamb sizzling in the pan and a friend-partner-lover who is willing to sleep next to him in a bed, even when Clint wakes up from nightmares he won't talk about.

The day passes slowly, the entire team on mandatory down-time. Paperwork and paperclip arrows – Clint is still a kid at heart and everyone worth knowing is aware of that fact – until Phil leaves for a closed-door meeting with Fury and Hill. Clint follows him on the motorcycle to put in some time at the range and gym; Natasha doesn't go easy on him but she does avoid his face when they spar so he thinks it's a good sign.

Phil reaches home first, so Clint walks into the sound of Nina Simone and the smell of roasting lamb. He presses a kiss to Phil's cheek as he grabs a beer and then settles on the couch with a dog-eared copy of T.S. Eliot.

It's not that he has an overwhelming love for him – especially when he writes in French because Clint's Spanish is much better – but there's something about the set-up of _The Waste Land_ that might make sense to him someday. If nothing else, it's tradition to make his way through the epic ever since Phil left it on his bedside table all those years ago.

Clint bookmarks the page he's on when Phil interrupts and goes to eat.

It's a quiet way to spend the day. Not ever what Clint dreamed about as a kid, but he's pretty happy with the way it turned out. 41 is going to be a good year, he's sure of it.


End file.
